THE FOREST
Somehow, it is always dusk when you approach.
That’s what Nanay always told me, and now twilight is falling when I see the lights, strung out against the forest like rosary beads. Like a necklace. The Sano port, glinting ahead and to the right. My arms shake but my head fills with a strange lightness.
I have had to row since the hills started to tower and shrink the wind until the sail emptied entirely. Mari and Kidlat are curled up asleep and I am glad Mari’s eyes are closed so I cannot see the hurt in them any more. There is a boat hunched in the harbour but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around.
The tide seems to be carrying us in, and I guide the boat as best I can towards a small cove to the left of the harbour. The necklace winks out of sight as the scraping of rocks jerk Mari and Kidlat awake. Mari looks around. Beyond the rocky beach, the forest sways darkly.
‘Ami, you did it.’ Mari looks at me and smiles. The knot in my chest unravels.
We take up our pillowcases and splosh into the shallows. It is not quite so shallow for Kidlat and he clings to Mari’s legs until we reach the beach. The solid ground feels tricksy under my feet, untethered as though it were the ocean. We sit a moment to steady ourselves. My mouth is dry and the orange segment Mari offers sings over my tongue. I watch the narrow shape of our boat bobbing against the rocks. The tide will take it out, unless it sinks without anyone to bail. Perhaps someone else will find it and fix it all over again.
‘Goodbye, Lihim,’ I murmur.
‘We’d better go,’ says Mari.
Walking in the dark should feel like an adventure, but all I can think about is how big the forest is and how small we are in it. The rains will be here soon, the clouds thickening and spilling, washing the air clean. For now, the night sky feels heavy above us, our breath thick.
We cross the road that brought Kidlat and me to the harbour and keep to the shadows so we can go uphill if we hear anyone coming. It should be easy enough to follow the road from a safe distance. The road that goes all the way to Culion Town. The forested hills loom above us, muffled and watchful. The ground is firm and branch-covered, and it would be impossible to see a snake in the shadows. Rosita used to say to let matters be, and the things that matter will take care of themselves. It seems a silly thing to think and I’m not sure I believe her, but it is rude to think ill of the dead so I decide to stop worrying about what is snake and what is shadow.
Mari and I are silent until we reach the river. Kidlat is too, but he is always silent. I remember the river crossing the path close to the end of our cart ride, and feel a fluttering in my stomach. We are moving so much slower than I’d imagined. A day instead of a couple of hours for the crossing, and how many more hours to reach here? The trees are set back so the moon beams down strong and silver. I untie the basin from my back and use it to collect water so we can drink. The taste of garlic and shrimp has still not entirely faded. The forest is motionless around us, but not quiet. We can hear frogs, the faint bubble of fish in the water, insects clicking at each other.
‘We should have brought a net,’ I say. ‘Or some lines.’
‘I have something better. My party trick. I’ll show you I’m not useless.’ Mari holds up her limp hand and wiggles her eyebrows so I can tell she’s teasing, but it still sends shame lancing through me. ‘Grab that.’ She points to a flat stone nearby. ‘Hold it up. And be ready.’
I don’t ask what for. She lies on her belly by the low bank, and lets her hand dangle in the current. Kidlat leans in to watch too. For a long while nothing happens, but I don’t interrupt. Her gaze has a beam-like focus. Then, something glints by her fingers. It begins to nibble at the skin. I suck in my breath, but Mari doesn’t flinch.
More tiny fish begin to gather, but it is only when a larger silver-green tilapia begins to pick them off that Mari brings her other hand down fast, scooping under the fish and flipping it out of the water, on to the bank. The fish lands two yards away from me, flapping and gasping.
‘Get it, Ami!’
I mean to, but I’ve never killed something like this. I’ve only ever collected meat already parcelled in brown paper from Rosita’s, or dropped crabs into oil and not had to watch.
‘Ami!’
The fish is flopping its way closer to the water, its panic taking it up in great arcs around my ankles. Mari stands up and grabs the stone from me. I hold on to it a little longer than I should, hoping that the fish will make it back to the water . . .
The stone falls and Mari rolls her eyes at me as she kicks it away from the fish. ‘We almost lost it.’
The underside of the stone has a dark smear and I don’t want to look at the fish, but can see it at the corner of my vision, twitching limply in Mari’s hand. She has picked it up by the tail and hits it against the stone and the twitching stops. I feel as if I’m about to cry. Kidlat is already sniffling.
‘Did you have to do that?’ I say, and my voice is angrier than I want it to be.
‘What?’
‘Hit it again!’
Mari hooks her finger under the gill and tilts her head at me like a quizzical bird. ‘It was dying. It was in pain. I meant to kill it with the stone, first time. It’s kinder that way.’
I sniff. Something is dripping from the fish, making a dull splatting noise on the stone.
Mari holds it out to me apologetically. ‘I can’t prepare this on my own, Ami. Can you help me?’
Her face is so worried and so kind that I feel embarrassed. I nod firmly. ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I don’t know—’
‘No, I’m sorry. I thought you’d have seen that before. It’s – it’s just food, Ami. It’s because we need food.’
‘I know that,’ I say, flushing.
‘There’s going to be more blood, when we gut it.’
‘It’s not the blood,’ I say. And it’s not. It’s the death.
She smiles hesitantly, then kneels and begins to rinse the fish in the quick-moving water. When she holds it out to me it looks as clean as when it came out of the river alive. It looks like the fish Nanay used to buy from Bondoc, that I helped her prepare a hundred times before. My throat feels a little less dry. I wash the dark stain off the stone and take the cold, firm body in both hands. I place it on the flat surface while Kidlat and Mari shift through the stones at the bank, searching for one that has not been smoothed by the water.
Kidlat hands me a sharp oblong stone, and, holding the fish steady by its tail I run the edge up its side. The scales come off like tiny mirrors, speckling the rock and making my fingers glint. I slice the fins off and lay them to one side. Then, hooking my finger through a gill I split the belly, running the flint down so it opens and I can scoop out the insides. Mari looks away at this bit, and I’m surprised, seeing as she was so brisk with the stone.
The flint isn’t sharp enough to fillet the tilapia neatly, so once I’ve rinsed the fleshy inside we take turns stripping the meat from the bones with our fingers. It’s fresh enough to be eaten raw, though it doesn’t taste very good. I try not to let my mind wander to the meal on the beach with Nanay, or even Luko’s boiling pot and rice.
As I swallow my last mouthful Mari nudges me. Kidlat is curled up on the ground, fast asleep.
‘We should wake him,’ I say.
‘Couldn’t we let him sleep a moment? I’m too tired to carry him.’
I look down at the tiny frame and sigh. Every moment we waste sleeping is another moment before we get to Nanay. But I can’t bear to wake Kidlat. I look along the river to where it disappears back into the thicket, and wonder if I should suggest I go on alone. But the darkness is suddenly terrifying.
‘A couple of hours won’t hurt,’ I say, and suddenly my legs begin to ache as if they have only just realized how much walking they have done. Mari nods and curls up too, her back against Kidlat’s. I lie down on his other side, facing the river. The water whispers over the rocks; the insects click.